Can a Texas court charge a separate filing fee for a forced-medication hearing for someone already committed?

Texas AG Opinion JC-0088: Are Forced-Medication Hearings a Separate Action With Their Own Filing Fee?

Plain-English summary

Kerr County and Bexar County each have a state mental hospital, and residents of one county are sometimes committed to the hospital in the other. Under an interlocal agreement, the two counties hold each other's commitment hearings. That setup produced a billing dispute. When a committed patient refuses psychoactive medication, the Health and Safety Code requires a separate hearing before the patient can be medicated against their will. The Kerr County Attorney asked the Attorney General whether the court could charge a separate filing fee for that medication hearing, or whether the hearing was just part of the original commitment case. Bexar County's position was that medication hearings are "derivative of the original commitment" and so should not carry a second fee.

The Attorney General sided with treating the medication hearing as its own action. The opinion walked through the statutory scheme: commitment under sections 574.034 or 574.035 turns on whether the person is mentally ill and dangerous or gravely disabled, while a medication hearing under section 574.106 turns on whether a committed patient lacks capacity to decide about medication and whether treatment is in their best interest, weighing the patient's preferences, religious beliefs, and the risks and benefits. Those are different questions, different evidence, and a different substantive right, the right not to be medicated against one's will.

Bexar County had leaned on a 1992 opinion, DM-174, which said a county clerk could not charge a filing fee to execute a release of judgment under section 31.008 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, because that procedure was merely derivative of the original action. The opinion distinguished that situation: executing a release of judgment is essentially ministerial, requiring no determination of rights or weighing of evidence, so it really is derivative. A medication hearing is the opposite. It adjudicates a separate right, and the statute itself says the application for it is "separate from an application for court-ordered mental health services," filed by a treating physician, and not necessarily even in the same county as the commitment. Because it adjudicates different rights, considers different issues and evidence, and requires a separate application, the opinion concluded a court may assign it a separate cause number and charge the attendant filing fee without impermissibly imposing more than one fee for a single action.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1999. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Can a court charge a separate fee for a forced-medication hearing?
The opinion concluded yes. Because a section 574.106 medication hearing is a distinct action with its own cause number, the filing fees attendant on it do not impermissibly charge a second fee in the original commitment case.

Why isn't the medication hearing just part of the commitment case?
The opinion explained it adjudicates a different right (the right not to be medicated against one's will), considers different issues and evidence, and is triggered by a separate application that the statute expressly calls separate from the application for court-ordered mental health services.

What about the older opinion saying no fee for a derivative procedure?
That opinion (DM-174) involved executing a release of judgment, which the office described as ministerial, requiring no determination of rights. The opinion here distinguished a medication hearing as a genuine adjudication, not a ministerial step, so the no-fee reasoning did not apply.

Who starts a medication hearing, and where?
The opinion noted the application is filed by a physician treating the patient on behalf of the state, in a probate court or a court with probate jurisdiction. The statute does not specify the county, so it may or may not be the same county as the original commitment.

Background and statutory framework

The opinion turned on the structure of subchapter C of chapter 574 of the Health and Safety Code. Commitment hearings under sections 574.034 and 574.035 decide whether a proposed patient is mentally ill and, as a result, likely to cause serious harm or is suffering severe distress and deterioration and cannot make a rational treatment decision. Medication hearings address a different step: section 574.103 requires a hearing before psychoactive medication may be given to a committed patient who refuses it (absent a medication-related emergency), and section 574.106 sets the procedure (conducted by a probate judge, or by a magistrate or master with appropriate training, with de novo appeal rights) and the findings required, that the patient was committed under section 574.034 or 574.035, lacks capacity to decide about the medication, and that treatment is in their best interest, weighing the patient's preference, religious beliefs, risks and benefits, consequences, prognosis, and alternatives.

The key textual hook was section 574.104(c), which provides that the medication application is "separate from an application for court-ordered mental health services," filed by a treating physician under section 574.104(a). The opinion cited In re R.S.C. for the proposition that the right not to be medicated against one's will may be abrogated only after the statutory factors are considered. It distinguished DM-174 (1992), which had read section 31.008 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code (a judgment debtor's release procedure) as a derivative, ministerial step that could not carry a separate filing fee, on the ground that a medication hearing is a substantive adjudication rather than a ministerial act.

Citations

Statutory provisions:

• Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. §§ 574.034, .035; § 574.103; § 574.104; § 574.106 (Vernon Supp. 1999)
• Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 31.008 (Vernon 1997)

Cases:

• In re R.S.C., 921 S.W.2d 506 (Tex. App.-Fort Worth 1996, no writ)

Attorney General opinion referenced: DM-174 (1992).

Source

• Landing page: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/john-cornyn/jc-0088
• Original PDF: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/1999/jc0088.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain — the linked PDF is authoritative.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL STATE OF TEXAS

JOHN CORNYN

August 10, 1999

The Honorable David M. Motley
Kerr County Attorney
County Courthouse, Suite BA-103
700 Main Street
Kerrville, Texas 78028

Opinion No. JC-0088

Re: Assessment of filing fees for medication petition hearings held pursuant to section 574.106 of the Health and Safety Code (RQ-0019)

Dear Mr. Motley:

You have asked this office to interpret section 574.106 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, which mandates a hearing before the involuntary administration of psychoactive medication to a mental patient. We consider the question of whether a medication hearing under section 574.106 is a separate and distinct action, or is merely derivative of the original commitment action for the patient. In our view, the medication hearing, which is not ancillary to all commitment actions, which involves the abrogation of a different substantive right as well as involving different issues and evidence, and which is triggered by an application separate from the application for court-ordered mental health services, is a distinct action. As such, the assignment to it of a separate cause number, as well as the attendant filing fees, do not, as Bexar County argues, impermissibly assess an additional fee in an original action.

As we understand the background to your question, Kerr County and Bexar County both contain state mental hospitals. Some residents of each county have been involuntarily committed to the hospital located in the other county; such commitments, pursuant to subchapter C of chapter 574 of the Health and Safety Code, require a hearing to determine whether the proposed patient is mentally ill, and as a result is likely to cause serious harm to himself or others, or is suffering severe distress, is experiencing deterioration of his ability to function, and is unable to make a rational and informed decision as to whether to submit to treatment. See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. §§ 574.034, .035 (Vernon Supp. 1999). By interlocal agreement Bexar and Kerr Counties have contracted to hold these hearings for each other in the case of patients resident in one county who are committed to a hospital in the other.

Besides commitment hearings, the Health and Safety Code also mandates hearings before psychoactive medications may be administered to an involuntarily-committed patient who refuses them, unless the patient is "having a medication-related emergency." Id. § 574.103. Such hearings are to be conducted on the record by the probate judge or judge with probate jurisdiction, id. § 574.106(c), or by a magistrate or court-appointed master with training regarding psychoactive medications, id. § 574.106(d). A record is not required if the hearing is before a magistrate or master. Id. However, a party may appeal a magistrate or master's report within three days of its issuance, and in that case is entitled to a hearing de novo by the judge. Id. § 574.106(e).

For the court to authorize the involuntary administration of psychoactive medication to a patient, it must find that he has been committed pursuant to section 574.034 or 574.035 and lacks the capacity to make a decision concerning the administration of the medication and that treatment with the medication is in his best interest. Id. § 574.106(a). The court is to consider the patient's preference with respect to the medication, his religious beliefs, the risks and benefits of the treatment, the consequence of not administering the medication, the prognosis for the patient if it is administered, and alternatives to treatment with the medication. Id. § 574.106(b).

As we understand it, Bexar County has taken the view that medication hearings "are derivative of the original commitment" and are consequently not original actions. Letter from Magdalena L. DeSalme, Assistant Criminal District Attorney, Bexar County, to Honorable John Cornyn, Attorney General (Feb. 23, 1999) (on file with Opinion Committee). Accordingly, in its view a separate filing fee for the medication hearing is unwarranted.

Bexar County's argument relies upon Attorney General Opinion DM-174, in which this office held that a county clerk could not charge a filing fee for a release of judgment executed pursuant to section 31.008 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, because "[t]he procedure authorized by section 31.008 . . . is not an original or separate cause of action, but is merely derivative of the original action . . . ." Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. DM-174 (1992) at 2. In our view, however, reliance upon Attorney General Opinion DM-174 is inapposite here.

Attorney General Opinion DM-174 concerned section 31.008 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which permits a judgment debtor who does not know the location of the judgment creditor to pay the amount of the judgment to the clerk of the court, which amount is held in trust for the judgment creditor. The judgment debtor thereupon prepares a recordable release of the judgment, which is executed by the clerk of the court and issued to the debtor. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. § 31.008 (Vernon 1997). Attorney General Opinion DM-174 took the view that the county clerk could not charge a filing fee in connection with the execution of the release, because the procedure was not an original or separate cause of action. See Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. DM-174 (1992) at 2.

A hearing on the issue of whether an involuntarily-committed patient may be medicated against his will is different in kind from the release of a judgment debt in a case already adjudicated. The execution of the release requires no determination of rights or consideration of evidence; it merely provides a method for the judgment debtor to satisfy an already-existing judgment. In that sense, it is clearly "derivative of the original action on the underlying debt." See id.

While a medication hearing only occurs when a patient has been involuntarily committed, see TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 574.106(a) (Vernon Supp. 1999), it requires the adjudication of a separate legal right, namely the right not to be subjected to medication against one's will. Under section 574.106, that right may only be abrogated after the proceeding in question has been held and the statutory factors have generally been considered. See, e.g., In re R.S.C., 921 S.W.2d 506, 514 (Tex. App.-Fort Worth 1996, no writ).

Further, the statute explicitly provides that the application pursuant to which the hearing occurs is "separate from an application for court-ordered mental health services." TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 574.104(c) (Vernon Supp. 1999). An involuntary medication application is filed by a physician treating a patient on behalf of the state. See id. § 574.104(a). The physician may file the application "in a probate court or a court with probate jurisdiction." Id. The statute does not specify in which county the application should be filed. It may be filed in the county of the original involuntary commitment hearing, and it may not. We do not believe such a proceeding, brought pursuant to a separate application and concerning a distinct substantive right, can be analogized to the essentially ministerial execution of the release contemplated by section 31.008 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code.

Accordingly, we conclude that, because medication hearings pursuant to section 574.106 of the Health and Safety Code adjudicate different rights than and consider different issues and evidence than commitment hearings pursuant to section 574.034 or 574.035 of the same code, and require a separate application to the court, the assignment to such hearings of separate cause numbers and the filing fees attendant thereon do not impermissibly charge more than one fee for a single action.

SUMMARY

Because medication hearings pursuant to section 574.106 of the Health and Safety Code adjudicate different rights than and consider different issues and evidence than commitment hearings pursuant to section 574.034 or 574.035 of the same code, and require a separate application to the court, the assignment to such hearings of separate cause numbers and the filing fees attendant thereon do not impermissibly impose fees in an original action.

Yours very truly,

JOHN CORNYN
Attorney General of Texas

ANDY TAYLOR
First Assistant Attorney General

CLARK KENT ERVIN
Deputy Attorney General - General Counsel

ELIZABETH ROBINSON
Chair, Opinion Committee

James E. Tourtelott
Assistant Attorney General - Opinion Committee